Page 17 of The Brightest Fell

“I need to talk to Simon,” I heard myself say. It seemed impossible for me to be speaking, since my entire body was numb, but I was doing it. Good job, me. “He’s the only person left who might be able to help me find her.”

“If you wish to enter his dreams, I’m sure—”

“No.” I raised my head slightly, meeting his eyes and refusing to let myself look away. “I need to talk to him. Not in a dream. Not in a blood memory. I need to wake him up and make him help me find her, before Amandine hurts our people. Please, Sylvester. Please, I am begging you. Let me wake your brother.”

His face was stone. He didn’t speak, and so neither did I. I just looked at him, silently pleading.

Sylvester Torquill is Daoine Sidhe, like Quentin, like his brother: the descendants of Eira Rosynhwyr, daughter of Titania and Oberon. Daoine Sidhe trend toward the beautiful, with dramatic coloration and perfectly sculpted features, and Sylvester is no different. His hair is russet red, like fox fur, and his eyes are the clear gold of wildflower honey. He wore his face with kindness, and his twin brother had always seemed to wear it with cruelty . . . at least until I’d seen Simon elf-shot for my sake. Until I’d traveled through his memories, and seen how much he loved his family. The brothers have more in common than they might ever admit, and I needed both of them to be willing to help me.

Sylvester looked away first. “He hurt my child,” he said, voice thick with loathing. “He took her from me, damaged her in ways that may never heal. He stole my wife. Why? Because he was alone, and wanted me to be alone as well? Because he thought I didn’t deserve to be happy if he couldn’t be?”

“Sylvester—”

“He took you!” Sylvester spun back to face me, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me once, for emphasis. “You, who should have been my daughter, for all the care your mother offered you, for all the love I showed you! He stole the child of my blood, and then he stole the child of my heart, and I still don’t have either of you back! Why should I let you wake him up, when he deserves to suffer for eternity for what he’s done to me?”

“Because Jazz doesn’t deserve to suffer,” I said softly. “Because Tybalt doesn’t deserve to suffer. Because my mother has stolen my family, has stolen my friend and my husband-to-be, and I need them back, Sylvester, I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t get them back. You can help me. You say I should have been your daughter? Well, be a father to me now, and help me. Give me what I need.”

“Luna won’t approve.”

“Luna doesn’t approve of anything I do anymore.” I paused. “But there is one thing I can offer to make her feel better about the idea.”

He frowned. “What’s that?”

“We haven’t woken Rayseline because she killed Connor. If we wake her, she has to stand trial, and she broke Oberon’s Law. You know what Arden will have to do.”

Sylvester’s frown became a grimace. “I do.”

“But the Luidaeg is technically the Selkie First. I can talk to her. I can talk to Arden. We can try to find a way to pardon Raysel for what she did.” It burned, talking about Connor’s death like it was a bargaining chip. At the same time, I didn’t think he’d mind.

All he had ever wanted was for me to be happy, and for us to have the chance to be together. We were never going to get the second. Why shouldn’t I do whatever I could to achieve the first?

Sylvester looked like he was wavering. I pressed on. “High King Sollys was able to pardon me for what I did to Blind Michael. That was only a few years ago. I can testify on Raysel’s behalf. I can tell them the combination of her biology and what was done to her as a child meant she wasn’t in her right mind when she killed Connor—she didn’t know what she was doing, she just knew that she was in pain and needed it to stop. She won’t do that again.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I took the Blodynbryd out of her. Her blood isn’t at war with itself anymore. She’s going to need counseling, and honestly, we should ask Karen if she’ll help Raysel audition therapists before we wake her up, so she’ll already have somebody standing by to give her a helping hand, but she isn’t going to do what she did again. Please. I can help you help her, but I need you to help me first.”

Sylvester was still. He looked at me impassively, and for a moment I thought I had pushed too far. Then, wryly, he smiled.

“You are your mother’s daughter, no matter how much you may hate me saying that, especially right now,” he said. “You know what I want most in the world, and you’d offer it to me if it meant I gave you what you wanted.”

My stomach churned. Was he right? Was I doing to him what Amandine had done to me, taking hostages against his heart for the sake of my own desires?

Yes. And no, because if he’d ever asked me to help with Raysel’s defense, I would have done it, no strings attached. It was just that we hadn’t really been speaking, and I hadn’t really been thinking about it. I had been selfish, but not cruel.

“I’ll help you with Rayseline’s defense no matter what, Sylvester; you only ever had to ask me,” I said, fighting to keep my voice level. “But I need Simon now, and I need you, my liege, to help me. Will you help me?”

Sylvester closed his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I will.”

I didn’t say anything. I just stepped forward and put my arms around him, resting my head against his chest, and waited for Raj to come with the potion that would change the world.

SIX

ELF-SHOT HAS BEEN A problem in Faerie for so long that some knowes, like Queen Windermere’s in Muir Woods, have dedicated rooms for its victims, places where sleepers can dream away the century of their sentence without getting dusty or being shoved into a closet and forgotten. Others, like the now-deposed King Rhys of Silences, kept their elf-shot sleepers in the dungeon, which to be fair, was a large, often unused space, but was not the nicest place for a hundred-year nap.

Shadowed Hills split the difference. They don’t have a dedicated room, but they have plenty of space, thanks to the eccentric and unpredictable geometry of the place. I knew Rayseline was asleep in a glass coffin in one of her mother’s greenhouses. The imagery of it made me a little uncomfortable, especially since the inventor of elf-shot, Eira Rosynhwyr, is sometimes considered the progenitor of the Snow White story.

Sylvester led us through a maze of hallways and empty rooms. A few looked like they’d been sealed for decades; dust coated the floors, a stain on the normally impeccable work of the housekeeping staff, marked with footprints along the path from door to door. Most of the prints were clearly Sylvester’s. He didn’t say anything, and so neither did the rest of us. We just followed.